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Boy Erased

I typically do not publish blog-posts so quickly after a previous post, for several different reasons, but this is just too important, too good, and necessary to raise awareness of a crisis that is in reality more common than most people around the world realize. What is it? It is twofold. One, the frequency of inter-sexed births around the world and how often it has been occurring throughout human history and its implications on societal (not religious or moral) norms! But this is not the real “Breaking News” story that’s going to shatter life as we know it. Second, and what IS shattering and inhumane is how Conservative, close-minded (religious?) hypocrites treat other humans (intersexed humans or LGBTQ humans) who have simply been born — from prenatal genetic developments and design — the way they were meant to be born. The abuse or mistreatment needs to be illegal and their safety and rights monitored/policed by all of society.

I have written a few posts in the past about the genetic prenatal designs for a person’s eventual gender and sexual orientation, e.g. Sexual & Gender Ambiguity: My Once Gross Ignorance. The science is overwhelming: there are little options for a person to “choose” what they will be and how they will behave when most of their neurology, hormones, and neural-programming in the brain has simply manifested in a way it was DESIGNED to be in the first place, not only in the womb from conception, but also from genomes from many, many ancestors! Is anyone familiar with just how immeasurably these gender-sexual systems vary within populations around the world? These births happen today in at LEAST four or five different regions on Earth annually. If you are not aware, get educated; get informed and updated about just how unimaginably diverse this Earth and all her species truly are by reading this. But just as immeasurable are the vast, never-ending spectrums of gender/sexual orientations within endocrinology and neurology. In other words, just as there are obvious physical differences, there are exponentially more differences that are not physical, but internal that began early inside the mother’s womb and was finished before her third trimester. Think about that people!

And yet, for far too many decades and centuries we still have a cognitive dysfunctional sector of the human population that are grossly naive, ignorant, or in severe denial of the actual facts. And worse, those dysfunctional people want to treat these different individuals with such insensitive, inhumane, dehumanizing methods like this new 2018 film Boy Erased truthfully portrays.

Yes, these Conversion Therapy camps actually exist and ignorant religious zealots ship their kids and teenagers — who cannot help what their prenatal genetic design has made them into — off to these psychologically damaging internment camps! These “clinics” or facilities are notmedically or psychologically based, much less legally licensed to perform such “therapy”! Just like bloodletting was a bogus remedy to infection, conversion therapy has no moral, medical, or scientific ground to stand on. It is child abuse. Period.

This must stop! Do everything you can to stop these abuses to children and teenagers by parents and churches that still live in the Medieval Dark Ages. How can you help and spread the awareness and higher intelligence? Go watch the movie for starters! Next, vote and campaign for the permanent closures of these (il)legal camps of child-abuse! These people (if you can call them that) simply do not understand the overwhelming science behind embryology, genetics, endocrinology, and neurology backed up by the actual, very tangible inter-sexed stats. Period. The religious-minded are horribly ignorant and misguided in this regard and many others! Educate them, save them from themselves… if possible. But do not NOT do anything. Speak out against them, stand up to them.

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For more important information on how to help and how much work/action needs to take place and continue, go here: LGTBmap.org and get active against child-abuse!

Ragazza, I wish I could say the trailer is fictitious, but sadly it is very real and there are MANY camps/facilities that use this sort of abuse — disguised as “Godly, holy, and spiritual” — and in the U.S. because of several interpolations of Constitutional laws AND because of State’s Rights, these camps/facilities are allowed to open, operate, and abuse these kids causing more severe, conflicting dysfunction. 😦

I hope someday these types of bogus “treatment centers” are banned quickly! However, we have several other battle fronts to win (e.g. church rights, religious rights, the refusal of sound factual science in favor of superstition and myth!) before we can permanently ban these types of organized child abuse.

Thank you Ragazza for your sentiments comments. Be sure to do whatever you can to halt these clinics! 🙂

My friend was forced into one of these camps by his Baptist family. He tried to kill himself twice. Then he decided to escape and live his own life. That was 15 years ago, and he is still scarred by what he went through. He is now married with the love of his life, his husbear, and is a radical faery. These camps and beliefs inflict untold damage, years later.

Ouch. I hurt and empathize deeply for your friend ND. 😢 I am a survivor of suicide (SoS), my Dad, and it is one of the most devastating acts for immediate and extended family, as well as close, dear friends/partners; lifetime painful memories that never fully go away. I am SO VERY HAPPY he is married to his “husbear” and living LARGE now as a true-to-self (and his genetics!) as that “radical faery”!!!! That is a great ending! 😉

It’s disgusting to think about those camps! Or the idea that people will shun and ostracize their own children, drive many to suicide over being gay! I mean, the people you’re supposed to love unconditionally are shunned due to religion and cast out as sinners… Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if an alien race thought their brains were parasitized to reject their offspring as it goes against evolutionary biology! Imagine feeling so worthless and unwanted in the world to take your own life because you thought your parents didn’t love you anymore… I’m not as big a fan of the gay community being so stridently political, and using their sexuality as a platform rather than a personal choice, but I can understand why many feel they want to speak out… Speaking of, any parents who reject their children, who could have a heart of gold, over something as superficial as being gay are parasitized and not in their right mind! Amazing how many will throw off all human decency and morals just because someone else told them to!https://aladyofreason.wordpress.com/

Agreed on all points LoR. Be sure to do whatever you can to help STOP these child-abuse “clinics” or “treatment centers”! Spread the awareness and TRUTH about the real embryology, endocrinology, genetics, and neurology that overwhelming opposes and contradicts the bogus “divine” superstitions commonly going around and are falsely taught.

“Parasitized” is exactly what it is. There are parasitic organisms that attack creatures like ants and snails, “hijacking” the host’s body and redirecting its behavior to spread the parasite, acting in ways totally at odds with the host animal’s normal behavior. I view religions as parasites (mental, not biological) which “take over” humans in the same way. In extreme cases they can abrogate normal feelings and behavior and turn a person into a vector for spreading the religion.

In this case, since homosexuality is a major taboo, parents are driven to force their own child to conform to the taboo even if the internal conflict kills the child.

If gay people hadn’t been subjected to centuries of vicious persecution fueled by these barbarous Abrahamic religions, they wouldn’t feel the need to band together as a group and defend themselves with such “strident” political activism. In the Classical Greco-Roman-Persian cultures, homosexuality was accepted to the point that there was no such thing as “a homosexual” as an identity — it would have served no purpose, just as today there’s no such thing as a distinct identity of people who prefer tea vs. those who prefer coffee. But people in less enlightened times respond to the circumstances in which they find themselves.

In ancient Greek culture a huge component of their societal connections and bonding were a MINIMUM of six (6) different forms/expressions of broader “love.” Here they are with my brief, ancient (contextual) Hellenistic definitions with some applications for today’s American society…

1. Eros – The first kind of love was eros, named after the Greek god of fertility, and represented the idea of sexual passion and desire. But the Greeks didn’t always think of it as something positive, as we tend to today. In fact, eros was viewed as a dangerous, fiery and irrational form of love that could take hold of you and possess you — an attitude shared by many later spiritual thinkers, such as the Christian writer C.S. Lewis. Eros involved a loss of control that frightened the Greeks. Which is odd, because losing control is precisely what many people now seek in a relationship. Don’t we all hope to fall “madly” in love?

2. Philia – The second variety of love was philia or friendship, which the Greeks valued far more than the base sexuality of eros. Philia concerned the deep comradely friendship that developed between brothers in arms who had fought side by side on the battlefield. It was about showing loyalty to your friends, sacrificing for them, as well as sharing your emotions with them. (Another kind of philia, sometimes called storge, embodied the love between parents and their children.) We can all ask ourselves how much of this comradely philia love we have in our lives. It’s an important question in an age when we attempt to amass “friends” on Facebook or ‘followers’ on Twitter — achievements that would have hardly impressed the Greeks.

3. Ludus – This was the Greek’s idea of playful love, which referred to the playful affection between children or young lovers. We’ve all had a taste of it in the flirting and teasing in the early stages of a relationship. But we also live out our ludus when we sit around in a bar bantering and laughing with friends, or when we go out dancing. Dancing with strangers may be the ultimate ludic activity, almost a playful substitute for sex itself. Social norms frown on this kind of adult playful frivolity, but a little more ludus might be just what we need to spice up our love lives.

4. Agape – The fourth love, and perhaps the most radical, was agape or selfless love. This was a love that you extended to all people, whether family members or distant strangers. Agape was later translated into Latin as caritas, which is the origin of our word charity. Lewis referred to it as “gift love,” the highest form of Christian love. But it also appears in other religious traditions, such as the idea of mettā or “universal loving kindness” in Theravāda Buddhism. There is growing evidence that agape is in a dangerous decline in many countries. Empathy levels in the U.S. have dropped nearly 50 percent over the past 40 years, with the steepest fall occurring in the past decade. We urgently need to revive our capacity to care about strangers.

5. Pragma – Another Greek love was pragma or mature love. This was the deep understanding that developed between long-married couples. It was about making compromises to help the relationship work over time, and showing patience and tolerance. The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm said that we expend too much energy on “falling in love” and need to learn more how to “stand in love.” Pragma is precisely about standing in love — making an effort to give love rather than just receive it. With divorce rates currently running at 50 percent, the Greeks would surely think we should bring a serious dose of pragma into our relationships.

6. Philautia – The final variety of love was philautia or self-love. The clever Greeks realized there were two types. One was an unhealthy variety associated with narcissism, where you became self-obsessed, and focused on gaining personal fame and fortune. A healthier version of philautia enhanced your wider capacity to love. The idea was that if you like yourself and feel secure in yourself, you will have plenty of love to give others (today this is reflected in the Buddhist-inspired concept of “self-compassion”). Or as Aristotle put it, “All friendly feelings for others are an extension of man’s feelings for himself.”

And I’ll end with this powerful quote by an equally gifted poet and writer of unconventional beauty… 😉

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
— “Song of Myself“, Walt Whitman

Can some of us Homo sapiens evolve up to the next level: Humana participatio? I really really hope so!

Here in the west it is still taboo [sick] hehe to embrace your feminine side. People tell me once in a while when they lose their filter that I have some gay in me. I used to counter that, but now I just thank them. We will only truly be whole when we can be open, embrace our feminine side instead of hiding it. And same for the women. We MUST embrace both sides in all of us if we want to find the ultimate station of contentment in our existence. Each gender (here in the west) is expected to suppress half of their true selves to conform to a stereotype spawned by a subjective morality. It’s ridiculous.

In my April 2011 blog-post Sexual & Gender Ambiguity: My Once Gross Ignorance, I introduce the quite common frequency of inter-sexed births as the FIRST CLEAR physical, undeniable evidence of sexual and gender diversity that is far, FAR beyond our societal imaginations and our eyes, but also, even more so neurologically, hormonally, and genetically… what we CAN’T SEE by the naked eye! Sexual orientation is so, so, SO unimaginably different and unique to every single person we can never fully wrap our own biased heads around just how diverse it is! SO LEAVE IT ALONE, LEAVE IT BE you fake god-players… to be exactly what it was prenatally designed to be and evolve into in the first place!!! It’s glaringly obvious that you god-players do not possess any expertise to mess with hundreds of thousands of years of genetic diversity! Duh!!! 😡

“Just STEP AWAY from the perfectly healthy, normal kid… or else!” That’s what I wish I could say to these superstitious idiots. 😒

Yes! If only to equitably suspend (temporarily?) your ingrained indoctrination to work that “U” process, would better refine one’s reasoning and improved objectivity and critical-thinking and analysis skill-sets! That is a very good insight Jim. Thank you!

P.S. I hope you don’t mind how I slightly changed/edited your point there. Is that acceptable Sir? 🙂

Hah! That mentality of people are property infectiously invades TOO MANY aspects of our current society, personal lives and relationships, and perpetuates all kinds of unhealthy dysfunction! Should I even get into marital proprietary contracts, i.e. monogamy!? 😉

Maybe on another post…a long one! Ownership mentality is a form of slavery. Rick Warren says we are to be stewards of our children for god. That means, make sure they believe, and handicap them from the word boo to someone else’s ideal.

You are so right Pink. This makes me remember during the 2018 World Cup Qualifying matches and once or twice during the 2014 WC in Brazil, Mexican fans would all chant together horrible derogatory slurs to national team players who were openly non-hetero. FIFA had to issue warnings and penalties to the El Tri (Federación Mexicana de Fútbol). The current Latin culture is so much worse than the American! It reminds me of Putin’s and Russia’s cultural climate on non-hetero relationships; there’s no difference. 😡

Somewhere recently (here?) it was pointed out that heterosexual couples produce these “gay” children … which means the genes were already there in one or the other (or both?) parent. Simply because the contributing parent(s) was “normal” (didn’t show any signs of homosexuality) is a terribly weak justification to use to disown or “treat” the child whose genes are directing him/her to view sexuality from a different perspective.

Of course, the Christian perspective on this whole thing doesn’t help matters!!!

You are exactly right Nan. And yes, Christianity, Islam, and specific sects of Judaism all do NOT help in the least. They merely find a problem where there is none, then create the problem based PURELY on ancient superstitions and erroneous traditions exclusive to a Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Classical Age tiny populous of the ancient world! That’s all! Wow, if that doesn’t define audacious arrogance (and ignorance!), I don’t know what could.

I’ve heard about this movie and will definitely see it. That this is going on, organized, brutal child abuse, sickens and enrages me. As a survivor of long term child abuse, I always tell people who ask me, “Why didn’t anyone try to help you?” that the fact is, horrid abuse is taking place right out in the open, every day, and most people go on acting as though they don’t see it or even worse, they condone it. This is an example of such abuse Truly, it enrages me.

As it should Jeff AND all of us that are reasonably sane and UNsuperstitious. When the science is overwhelmingly supportive of the prenatal designs from many, hundreds of ancestors, let alone in embryology, genetics, endocrinology, and neurology just to name four, the actual PHYSICAL evidence (inter-sexed births) also clearly demonstrates how immeasurably diverse sexual-orientation truly is and has been!!!! There’s really no debate or controversy at all!!!! The real problem is the rampant parasitic beliefs of superstition of a binary only life, a black-or-white life system further distorted by a rampant parasitic belief in Monism!!! All of these warped paradigms or ideologies are cancerous. Period.

Btw Jeff, I was unaware of that background. I am truly and empathetically sorry. As a former worker in a Psych/A&D hospital and rehab who witnessed first hand these sorts of damaged and barely “hanging on” cases, I genuinely mean that. ❤

Oh, no offense taken. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, as I don’t want to talk about it outside of with the therapist I work with, but let’s suffice it to say it has given me a great barrier and disability to live with in life. I “walk” with a severe emotional/psychological “limp”. And often just barely. This story just reminds me of how out in the open horrid child abuse can be and even be condoned because, well, because it’s what god wants. While I’m not gay nor struggling with my sexual identity, I deeply empathize with anyone who is attacked, judged, and/or severely abused simply for being who and what they truly are. Religion so often seems to do that very well, doesn’t it.

Gosh, my chest is hurting for you and with you Jeff. However, I am so very glad you’ve at least found enough support and therapy to function pretty well in life now! I know this… your sense of humor is FABULOUS and a wonderful gift, either a natural one or as a result of this past, makes no difference!!! It is GOOD MEDICINE my man! Keep sharing it! 😉 ❤

Yep. And the superstitious beliefs being taken as “real” allow this sort of open, group sanctioned, child abuse. When belief outweighs reality and demonstrable evidence, nothing but bad sh*t’s gonna happen.

On March 28, Washington state became the 11th state plus the District of Columbia to enact a law or regulations. California was the first in 2012. And on April 4, Maryland lawmakers passed a ban that Gov. Larry Hogan has indicated he will sign. Many bills are still in play.

Local jurisdictions have taken up the cause as well. More than 40 municipal bans and resolutions condemning the practice are on the books in cities and counties — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Washington, Arizona and New York — seven of which passed in 2018.

One of those was approved March 27 by the Milwaukee City Council, which makes Milwaukee the first city in Wisconsin to pass such an ordinance.

Thanks for raising this issue, Professor. I was not aware that: “according to the Intersex Society of North America, about one in 100 births are intersexed or do not fall under “standard” male or female identity.”

I’ve often wondered if the ubiquitous toxic soup we-humans live in could be affecting the development of the human fetus in its mother’s womb.

That’s a great question Rosaliene. It certainly makes a young life HARDER, more confusing, more conflicting post-natal by misguided societies and parents/family shaming a child/teenager against their biological-genetic transgenerational blueprint. In embryology they have shown repeatedly that even the biological mother’s and father’s environmental situation 2-3 months PRIOR to conception and up to birth does indeed affect the fetus and unborn child. For example…

You are certainly not wrong John, as far as a whole or average working against a neurological programming over 2-3 millenia generation after generation reinforced by YEARS of societal intrusion. I wouldn’t argue with you.

However, it did work with me in my case and history… and a few others I know. 😉 hehehe Ugh, but are sporadic numbers enough to make the healthy changes?

Well, you got me there John. 😉 Yes, visited and lived on 4 of the 6 inhabitable continents will indeed open up one’s naivety BIG TIME and forces one to realize you are incapable of truer objectivity and “fairness” when you already have been programmed to think you “know everything there is to know.” That’s a valid point Sir. That “carefully managed myopic universe” is in many ways a brain tumor as Mark Twain poignantly and appropriately points out, eh? …

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. — from The Innocents Abroad

Interestingly, or perhaps disturbingly, this issue even crosses religious lines. Thirty years ago the idea of a person’s sexuality being changed was casually floated around in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. I wasn’t exposed to religious conversion therapy but I was sent to a succession of therapists who attempted to “condition me” into heterosexuality.

I grew up between the US, Brazil (and to a lesser degree Europe), so it was essentially everywhere. And I certainly wasn’t alone. Gay boys have been “pushed” to conform to heterosexual norms forever. As soon as differences are noted, families and society at large work very hard to erase or at least conceal those differences. Ask any Southern European (or Latin in general) gay boy how much he was “encouraged” to have relations with girls and I guarantee they’ll tell you the pressure was overwhelming.

And you are now in France, am I right? I might be confused… which seems to be more frequent in my “advanced” years. Ugh. 🤪😒

Ahh, I did spend some time in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), but I guess I wasn’t there long enough to pickup on the relational norms — typical hetero American soccer boy who if not on the pitch was often on Copacabana or Ipanema beaches… staring at all the…

GREAT volleyball and beach futebol going on! 😉

Seriously though, I am close enough to Mexico to now easily pickup on that hard Latin prejudice of unconventional binary relationships. It is unnecessarily hateful and disgusting as human beings. Again, I’m sorry Pink. I hope we as a more intelligent species are improving, in some regards.

“And you are now in France, am I right?” I was in France once. I left immediately because people there talk funny. Couldn’t understand a damn thing they said. It’s disgusting how many people there are in fake countries like France who don’t speak a real, patriotic language like ‘Murican. Down with da French! MAGA!!